Last night was the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association dinner.  Its a swanky affair at the Hilton in NYC where the writers hand out all the awards announced after the season, like the Manager of the Year, Cy Young’s ad MVP’s.  They also have a few other local chapter awards, which bring in a few of the old timer’s back for late in life honors.  When you arrive you are handed a program, which tells you where you will be sitting, and luckily we were in the center of the room.  The members of the dais, all those giving and receiving the awards stood behind their seats, and of course, the richest man in baseball, Alex Rodriguez, stood out, and not only because he has the most familiar face, and is really is quite handsome, but because his dinner jacket was black velvet, which caught the stage lights quite differently then all the other formal wear on stage.  Yogi Berra was there to introduce him, though that didn’t come until the end of the evening.  Before that there were many fine moments, including Craig Biggio presenting Dustin Pedroia with his Rookie of the Year award, while also giving him the tag as someone who plays the game right, running all the way to first on ground balls etc.  Later, Willie Randolph gave a lifetime good guy type award to Biggio, and he reminded Goose Gossage, an earlier award winner, that Biggio’s first home run came off of Gossage.  Luis Tiant, who must have shrunk about 6 inches since his pitching days, presented CC Sabathia with his CY Young.  El Tiante may not have come up to CC’s shoulder’s, but the Luis gave him a big hug after CC gratefully accepted the award on behalf of the Cleveland Indians.  Willie Randolph, while presenting to Craig Biggio, asked Jimmy Rollins if he was willing to make any predictions for the season, here, in NY.  ”Got any predictions tonight for us?”  He later added that Jimmy could play for him any time.  Hope that doesn’t mean anything about Jose Reyes!  Willie is always a treat, and when Vice-chair of the Baseball Writers Dave Lennon introduced Brian Cashman, he asked Willie to save some of his material for the season, since Willie can often be very very dry during his press conferences.    Cashman, too, was great to hear speak, as always.  He was to present the local “Toast of the Town” Award to Joba Chamberlain, and spoke about how quickly Joba rose through the minors, and what great things Cash heard from his scouts along the way, but when he went to see him at New Britain Joba was lit up in his two inning of work.  Nonetheless, Cash listened to his baseball guys and brought him to the bigs, the Joba rules were created, and  the rest of the story we all know.  Joba, for his part when accepting the award, reached out the American League Manager of the Year Eric Wedge with a request that if they meet up again next year the Mr. Wedge should leave the bugs at home.  The year of the pitcher was honored big time last night too, since in was 40 years ago this season that three pitchers put up amazing numbers that were so outstanding that MLB lowered the pitchers mound.  Denny McClain’s numbers in 1968 include 336 innings, 280 strikeouts and 1.96 ERA.  He of course won the MVP and Cy Young that year, and was also a winning pitcher on the World Series winning Tigers.  He added some humor by suggesting that he and Rusty Staub go find an all-you-can-eat joint, and see if they would pay them $100 each to not eat there. He also pointed out that it might take these young pitchers 7 years to throw 336 innings. It was a fun night, and as Billy Martin Jr. pointed out a great start to what will be the 2008 season. 16 days until pitchers and catchers!